Iconic albums of my time #1

Every Picture Tells a Story - Rod Stewart

It started with the single Maggie May, which I bought from Kennedy's Records at the back of the markets in Leeds. As was the protocol in those early teenage years I bought the single first, for ten shillings, played it, liked it, flogged the single to Rodney Emmott for ten shillings (secondhand) and went and bought the album for (I think) £2 10s.

Its still very listenable, hasn't dated at all in my ears, in fact all of the Faces stuff is still very listenable, was listening to "Long Player" just last night on Napster, excellent stuff.

After the "Every Picture" album I bought the two previous solo albums and the two previous Faces albums, and then followed that with everything they released as a band or solo (including Ronnie Lane and Ron Woods solo stuff) for years after that - you could say I was a fan, had the hair all rough cut and spiked up, tartan scarf, mod jacket and everything - there is photographic evidence but it is safely locked in my safe at home with instructions not to be made public until 50 years after my death, I have my childrens reputation to think of.

Rod Stewart went badly wrong after "Tonight I'm Yours" in 1981, the writing had been on the wall for a couple of years after he'd moved to Los Angeles on a permenant basis and joined the rest of the bland stadium rock bands, frmo then on his writing and albums took a very predictable course with only a few exceptions every couple of years, the contributions from Tom Waits being ones that spring to mind, and his recent success at crooning the old crooners songs, whilst commercially very successful, are simply appalling to listen to, if I want Natt King Cole, Sinatra or Tony Bennett then I'm still capable of finding their original and best recordings thank you very much.

"Every Picture Tells a Story" is still a stand-out album for me though, I've had vinyl and CD versions and have also downloaded it on MP3 for my iPod, it describes a great era for me, 1971 and all that jazz, the album is a great mix of soul derived rock (The Temptations "Losing You"), beautiful Bob Dylan lyrics in "Tommorrow is a Long Time", pure Tim Hardin folk on "Reason to Believe", vintage Elvis on "Thats all right" and the superb but pure pop lyrics of Mr Stewarts own contributions "Maggie May" and "Mandolin Wind", there isn't a bad track on the whole album, I recommend it to the house.